


when it all falls down again

by orphan_account, vyoria (orphan_account)



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, F/F, Pseudo-Incest, minor dub-con, unhealthy codependency
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-09-25 05:16:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9804137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/vyoria
Summary: She knows what she did when she handed over the equations to Lena, knows that the high of Red K is enough to blind her to her hypocrisy, her fear.(She doesn't know if Alex will hurt her, will want to look at her after this. She doesn't know that she cares to hide anymore.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, listen up. I've written way worse stuff than this, like way worse. I'm aware of how unhealthy this relationship is going to be in this fic. _I know._ Just look at my backlog of Carmilla fics.
> 
> Anyway, thanks to vyoria for being my writing partner on this. I pitched the idea to her and she gave me what I needed to start.

She doesn’t flinch when Lena approaches, syringe in hand, doesn’t flinch when radiation close to her own red sun filters through her cells from the lamps surrounding her. She barely even looks at the other woman when the needle pierces her skin, focused as she is on rapidly disappearing red.

If her calculations are correct, the reagent she had had Lena add should slow the process down. She has maybe two days, at most, before anything will happen, two days to back out before everything falls, breaks apart beneath her own selfish desires.

“I can leave the lamps on if you want?”

Once upon a time, she thinks, she could have loved this woman. She could have given Lena everything that she ever wanted for and more. She could have lived with the knowledge that Alex and Maggie are together, could have found love in eyes the colour of vulnerability, in dark hair and a slight Irish accent.

Once upon a time, she could have been happy.

“Once upon a time doesn’t exist,” she murmurs to herself before raising her voice enough for Lena to hear. “No…you can take them off. I think…I think I’d like to go home now.”

Lena nods, takes her hand to lead her away from the table, from what they’ve just done. Kara doesn’t fly, not like this. She can’t risk being found, can’t risk Lena’s role in this being discovered before she has a chance to explain.

The car is sleek, a new model, the name of which she can’t recall at that moment. She’d been excited when it had been announced, anxious and giddy to see how far human ingenuity could go with its rudimentary understanding of physics and engineering in turns. Alex had pretended to be annoyed, but Kara had recognised, even then, how much she had shared in her anticipation.

Lena grins, motions for her to get in.

“Winn tells me that you’re something of a speed demon. I imagine flying buses can achieve greater rates of acceleration than normal buses.”

Kara groans, runs her fingers through her soaked hair. She privately thanks the gods that they hadn’t been in the rain long enough for it to start dripping onto the faux leather seats.

“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”

Lena shakes her head, bites her lip. It’s a cute look on her, one that pains Kara when she thinks of how much she cannot give this woman who has given so much of herself to her, to the world.

“You told me that you flew in on a bus, Kara. You were more than a bit obvious.”

She knows that, knows how bad she can be at lying when she doesn’t care. She knows how little effort she tends to put in with the people she cares about most. As much as she is Kara Danvers, that woman is still an illusion, reflections of someone who couldn’t exist anywhere besides Earth.

She stares out of the window, feels Lena’s fingers running across her open palm. She lets it happen, allows the other woman to ground herself in the midst of this strange friendship they’ve managed to construct.

It’s as much for her as it is for Lena, this grounding. If anything goes wrong, she needs her to pull her out, to do what she’s not sure Alex will be able to.

(She tries not to think about how much she doesn’t want Alex to have that kind of control over her, about how much control she already has.)

* * *

 

The storm is still raging, worse now, when she gets into her apartment. Her glasses come off, her hair comes down. She’s not comfortable as Kara Danvers, not right now.

Thunder crashes, her body flinching in reaction to the sound. She feels less, feels small at the sound. She’s barely thirteen again, her pod just on the edge of the blast radius, fear the only thing she feels before she’s lost to the force of Kyrpton’s explosion.

“Kara?”

She looks up from where she’s curled into herself on the couch, unsure of how much time has passed. Alex is standing above her, takeout in hand as she looks at her, confusion clear in her frown.

She shakes her head, glad that her calculations have held true. She’s not ready for this, not ready to face Alex when her actions are still so clear in her memory. She’s not ready to face the possibility of being abandoned again when Maggie inevitably calls and she has to wave Alex away with a smile.

The thunder sounds again, she curls deeper into herself.

The couch dips next to her, Alex’s fingers skimming across her shoulders. She lets herself be pulled into the other woman, lets herself feel the warmth that’s simply Alex.

Memories of what happened hours ago fade as she’s pulled into her orbit, and Kara lets herself forget, if only for a moment.


	2. Chapter 2

Kara is shaking in her arms.

There’s something fragile about her like this, something that makes her ache to keep the world away, to keep her safe, warm. Alex knows that she can’t, knows that Kara would only hate her for caging her in like that, but part of her wants it, wants to keep her Kryptonian to herself. Part of her wants to keep her away from a world that would tear her apart if it knew how vulnerable she could be.

It’s a selfish thought, to want her like that. Her mother’s words still ring in her ears, _sister, sister, sister_. The mantra is ever present, always weighing her down, pulling her beneath the waves until she’s not sure she can break the surface.

Her sister runs hot, hotter than anyone has the right to run, but she doesn’t let her go. Choked words mumbled in a language long gone prevent her from doing that, from backing away when she should. They sink into her skin, breaks her apart as she tries to keep Kara together.

Not for the first time, Alex curses Astra, curses the parents that would send Kara to earth with a burden of obligation too strong to ignore. She curses the fate Kara’s chosen for herself, curses the way she can’t hold back from being so good when the rest of the world fails, when _she_ fails so miserably to keep her safe, happy.

Thunder sounds, the shaking increases.

Kara flinches, curls deeper into her embrace. Alex holds her tight, waits for the flash of lightning that always follows.

When the apartment lights up, Alex notes how close it is, wonders if this is Livewire coming for her sister in her moment of vulnerability. Or is it someone else? Some long forgotten god come for Kara now that she’s made herself known to the world?

The thought makes her want to find herself at the bottom of a bottle, makes her want to drink to oblivion. She doesn’t want to lose Kara, doesn’t want to have to let her go when she knows that Kara should live, that she deserves to live when all others falter.

“’Lex…”

Alex winces. The name is slurred, as if Kara is drunk. She hasn’t used that name since Lex started to fight Clark, since brother turned against brother in a battle Alex has always tried to keep Kara away from.

“Hey, you.”

Kara whines, clutches the front of her shirt.  Alex loosens her hair from the high ponytail she must have worn to work, cards her fingers through it gently until Kara relaxes against her.

“Come on, love. Relax. I have you.”

Her sentences are short, low. She wants Kara to focus, to pay attention to her and only her. She pushes down the voice that says that she doesn’t deserve this, that she shouldn’t touch her with hands stained red with blood.

“I’ve got you, Kara,” she whispers, her free hand moving to rub Kara’s back. She slips it under her shirt, knows that Kara needs the skin to skin contact to ground herself. “I’m right here. I’m not leaving, promise.”

Under her breath, she starts to sing. She doesn’t remember the name of the song, doesn’t remember where she’d heard it from. It’s been so long since she’d had to sing it that she can barely recall when it had started. What she remembers is Kara’s face lighting up when her grandmother visited, the way she would listen, reproduce Hebrew that was closer to her grandmother’s than Alex’s ever could be.

The words come stilted, half-remembered as she focuses on Kara, on soothing away the pain of Kara’s memories, her nightmares. She’s done this so many times but there’s something different, something that shifts between them.

There’s a warmth on her stomach as she sings, fingers pressing down on her skin, mimicking the way Alex applies a slight pressure as she rubs Kara’s back. She tries to ignore it, tries to ignore the way her body moves into it.

Now isn’t the time, she thinks.

Kara’s fingers are lazier than hers, though, sluggish as she struggles to stay awake. Alex can feel it in the weakening tension of her shoulders, the way Kara becomes heavier as she leans into her.

There’s a loss of control here, the falling away of something that allows Alex to relax, to taper off with her words until they become a quiet hum in the dark. Kara, she thinks, wouldn’t mind, her eyes already closed, breathing evening out in the dark.

She should text Maggie, should let her know that she won’t be home. She should move, should put Kara to bed, leave before she wakes. She has a life, a lover waiting for her, but she can’t force herself to move away from the woman on top of her.

Alex is too comfortable, too at home like this to actually move. She’s had a long day, tiring, and all she wants herself is to sleep, to close her eyes, give in to oblivion.

Kara’s warmth reminds her of this, reminds her of her humanity in a way that only she is capable of doing. It makes Alex want to scream, most times, but tonight, she wraps her arms tighter, pulls Kara closer until her back is to the couch, Kara safe against her.

Kara nuzzles into her chest and she sighs. They need to talk about this, need to find the walls that used to exist when Kara had first arrived.

She’s not sure how long she can go on like this, how long she can let herself give into everything that is Kara. She doesn’t know that she should, that either of them should allow this to continue, to grow between them while the world falls apart around them.

She can’t let that happen, can’t lose everything she’s worked for, but this is _Kara_ , this is her alien girl. She can’t leave her, can’t put that distance between them that she so needs without breaking two hearts. She knows that, knows how much trouble she’s in.

As she falls asleep, she wonders when she started caring so much.


	3. Chapter 3

It starts with a tingling in her fingers.

Lena’s just administered another shot, fingers steady as she pushes the plunger down to infect her, change her into something she doesn’t like, something she wants for this short period. Kara knows that she should be wary of her silent compliance, of her Luthor name, but Lena is her friend, the only one she trusts to do this without running off to Alex, to Clark.

She’s taking all sorts of risks with this as it is. She doesn’t want to have anyone upsetting the delicate balance of chemicals that they’re forcing into her system, no matter how sure of her own work she actually is, doesn’t want anyone to stop her before she’s ready to end this.

As the tingling increases in a steady crescendo, she wonders if her father would be proud, if he would be disappointed. The weight of Medusa still hangs heavy, a sword waiting to descend, split her in half. It’s almost amusing that the sword looks like the one Alex used to kill her aunt, to take the last of her home away from her.

She waves Lena away when she offers to leave the lamps again, the familiar words sinking into her as she looks at the woman. After all, how easy would it be to take her here? To fuck her the way she’s been begging to since they’ve met?

How easy would it be to have a Luthor on their knees, willing to do anything for even the smallest bit of her attention?

Kara shakes away the thought, hops off of the table she’s sitting on. The serum is working too fast, its effects too strong already. She’ll have to rework the equations, rethink how she wants to approach this before they continue.

“Blue kryptonite,” she says slowly, “How much of it do you have?”

“Not enough. I’d need to get to Lex’s old bunkers in the south to confirm that his stash is still there.”

“Can you…?”

She trails off, not wanting to ask Lena to go, to put herself through that reminder of everything her brother has done so far. The darker part of her, the part that’s rapidly gaining dominance, reminds her that this woman still has the blue prints for her alien detection device in her vault, that she still hasn’t declared either way for the pro-alien cause. It reminds her that whatever Lena faces there would be deserved, would serve as a form of justice that she can’t give.

Her fingers flex, wanting, needing to feel something in their grasp. She imagines bones breaking in her grip, the solid weight of her aunt’s sword. She imagines taking this world for her own, a new Krypton for a new age.

“I can try to get it transported here by tomorrow. The logistics need some working out but –”

Kara shakes her head. Tomorrow isn’t fast enough. Another neutralizing agent then, one that’s more readily available.

As much as she needs the feeling of being limitless, the feeling of nothing holding her back, she knows that she can’t risk this, can’t risk the plan in case Alex tries to stop her. She can’t risk anyone knowing.

Kara’s pulse quickens as she leaves, changing and taking off into the air as soon as she can. She loves this, loves the way flying feels so much like the freedom she’s chasing, feels like the only thing that won’t bring her falling to the ground.

Her lips twist at the thought, the irony not escaping her. Diving down, she skims the top of National City, basks in the adoration of those humans who actually see her. This is hers. This is everything and she will hold it selfishly, she knows.

* * *

 

Alex isn’t there when she swoops into her apartment. She hadn’t expected her to be, hadn’t thought that she would even give Kara a thought when she knows that Maggie has something planned for them tonight. It still stings, but she brushes it off, pushes the hurt down as she changes, hops into her shower.

She needs to wash the grime off of her, to wash away shy, quiet Kara Danvers before she can do anything else. It feels wrong to be in that skin, feels like a betrayal of Kara Zor-El to diminish herself in that way.

She remembers Astra, remembers the way her pride refused to let her bow. She remembers the way her aunt’s crusade demanded sacrifice, demanded blood for the good of the collective.

Society is built on sacrifice. Order is built from chaos.

She gets out from under the water, strides to her closet. In the back is the repaired uniform she had asked Alex to save, the reminder of all that _she_ had sacrificed. Her fists clench, her eyes close as she reaches out, runs her knuckles along the fabric.

Kara knows when this uniform was made, when her father had designed the micro-weave specifically for Astra. A gift to the House of Ze, he had told her, for allowing him the honour of bonding with her mother. It had been later adapted into the Military Guild, adapted into Astra’s resistance.

Cold legacy crawls down her back like ice as she pushes it back where it belongs, leaves it for another day, another time. She’s not tired but she needs to think, needs to let herself feel all that she’s held back for so long.

* * *

 

The bar is emptier without M’gann, feels like it’s lost the kind of warmth that the Martian brought to it whenever she’d come here. It doesn’t matter, she thinks, as she orders her drink from the Thanagarian who’s on duty tonight. She’s not here for the atmosphere.

The alcohol burns on its way down as she throws her head back. It’s stronger than the Alderbaran rum, strong enough to press against the influence of the red kryptonite in her blood, blurring the edges of her thoughts, slowing them down.

Kara’s about to order another, enjoying the fuzz of not having to see for a while, when the door opens, a familiar laugh reaches her. She swallows the sharp jealousy on her tongue, watches in the mirrored wall as Alex slides into a seat with Maggie.

There’s the strongest urge to get up, to go over to their table and insert herself. She can already see herself doing it, see herself sliding in next to Alex. She would be a little too close to be friendly, a little too intimate for sisters, her hand rubbing slow, torturous circles on her leg as she smiles, pretends to be interested in the conversation.

Kara imagines herself touching the sliver of skin she can see where Alex’s shirt rides up in the back, tracing her name in Kryptonese, a subtle claim on the woman. That it would be subtle makes her blood heat, makes her want to scream in frustration at the Earth customs she’s placed herself under.

On Krypton she would have had Alex. The Matrix would have matched them, would have ensured that hers was the best match for a warrior like her, an intellect.

The glass cracks in her grasp, forcing her to look away. She needs to get out of there, needs to get into the open before her judgement is impaired too much.

Her arm throbs when she hits the cold night air, the point of insertion like a beacon in the dark. Part of her wishes that her aunt would find her, that she was _alive_. She wishes that Astra could see her now, could watch as she struggles to accept all the darker parts of her that she never seemed to struggle with.

Kara walks, feeling for the first time like she doesn’t deserve to bear the name of El, like her desire for Alex is tainted by something black, ugly. It’s not pure, it’s not Kryptonian. She hates that it’s not, that she can so easily forget the fundamental ways in which she is supposed to be her.

She feels like the weight of it is too much, the weight of that legacy crushing down on her when she wants and wants and wants more than anything else. Part of her wonders if it’s because of the red kryptonite, if this increase in desire comes from the removal of her inhibitions. Part of it wonders if it had always been there, if it had always been lying dormant, waiting for her to cast aside the vestiges of a home long gone.

And casting it aside is what she has done, she knows. She’s abandoned her core values with this, turned her back on everything that made her a member of the House of El.

Kara snorts as she wanders. Krypton is dead. There is no going back, no return to a time and a place that once was. All there is, all that exists, is the here and now, this place that pushes her down, forces her to hide who she really is. All that’s left is this cold and broken existence.

She turns a corner, looks up at the blazing sign so familiar to her. Legacies, she thinks as she floats up, should not hurt this much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured if blue kryptonite could neutralize Bizarro by overloading her powers and take away a normal Kryptonian's powers, it could neutralise the effects of red kryptonite by either draining or overloading some of its effects. This really isn't sound science, people.
> 
> Also, I wasn't pleased with this chapter. It jumps all over the place, but I guess it's fitting given...yeah.


	4. Chapter 4

Alex likes to pretend sometimes, likes to make believe that Kara can’t hurt her. She likes to believe that she’s not at her mercy, that she’s her own person. It’s a vice that pairs well with whiskey in the dark of night when her thoughts become too much for her to handle on her own.

She lies to herself at those times, tells herself that everything she’s doing matters when it’s compared to the blinding light that is Kara’s selfless heroism. She tells herself that it matters more than it really does, that what she does is something to be valued.

Right now? Right now, she’s staring at the bottom of her glass, telling herself that it doesn’t hurt that Kara’s ignoring her. She’s telling herself that she doesn’t want to get up, that she wants to stay here with Maggie, to be happy with her girlfriend instead of chasing after someone she shouldn’t want to chase after.

Kara’s unsteady, something seemingly off about her as Alex watches her drink, watches the way her throat moves as she swallows. She crosses her ankles beneath the table in an effort to sit still, to not go up to her, smooth the crinkle in her forehead.

“Up for a game Danvers?”

She shakes her head as Maggie pulls her out of her thoughts, smiles to take the sting out of it. She’s afraid of getting up, afraid that she’ll abandon her date for Kara again.

Her skin itches with the need to go there, to find out what’s wrong and make everything better, like she always does. Her body is thrumming with unused energy, with the need to move, to ask a question she’s not sure how to form anymore.

She signals the bar, motions for M’gann to send over another glass as she gulps down the alcohol already in front of her. Maggie moves to take the glass as she’s drinking, but she swats her away gently, laughs a bit as she plays it off as the result of a stressful day.

As she’s drinking, laughing with Maggie, Alex feels eyes on her. It should come as a relief that Kara’s acknowledging her presence, that she’s at least looking in her direction, but it feels heavy, laden with something she can’t figure out.

It pricks her skin, makes her feel cold and hot at the same time. She shifts uncomfortably, wants more than anything to get out of there, to run and hide far from her.

She leans forward, directs her focus to Maggie. This is good, this is something she should be paying attention to more than the blonde at the bar. This is what she’s here for, what’s brought her out of her apartment when she’d rather be in bed nursing bones that ache from training with the new agents.

She tries to ignore everything else in favour of her girlfriend, tries to ignore the way Kara moves as she leaves, the way her gaze lingers even after she’s gone. Her skin is living static, alive with the energy needed to get up, to move and follow after her.

Instead, she turns to Maggie, returns her smile with one that feels more genuine than anything else tonight.

“We could go back to my place and play there? Pretty sure you’d like what I want to do.”

* * *

 

Kara’s there when Alex gets to her lab in the morning. Where she’s a headache away from shooting someone, Kara is bright, happy. There’s nothing of the brooding, darker person from the night before, nothing of the woman who reminded her of something she can’t let herself remember at the moment.

“Hey! I’ve been waiting for you.”

She’s almost knocked over by the force of Kara’s embrace, sinks into her as soon as they meet instead. It feels like they haven’t done this in forever, feels like she hasn’t touched her since she’s come out.

They stay like that longer than they usually do, Alex more than content to let herself just feel Kara’s heat, the way she holds her closer than anyone else does. She’s missed this more than she wants to admit, missed the contact and the way it seems to fill something empty inside of her.

“You okay, Little Alien?”

Kara huffs a laugh, buries her face in Alex’s neck as she leans back against the table behind her. Her breath is warm against her skin, a tantalizing thing that she has to fight against, that she has to ignore.

“It’s been a really long time since I’ve been able to hold you like this. I wouldn’t mind staying like this for as long as I can.”

“Yeah.”

Her mind takes her back to that night then, to the sound of rain and the feel of Kara’s palms on Alex’s skin. It takes her back to the way she’d felt old things rise to the surface, old wants that had nothing to do with Kara and everything to do with the thing inside of her that’s wrong, that’s twisted and goes against everything she’s supposed to be.

Alex pushes her away then, her hands gentle as she soothes away the sting of her rejection.

“That sounds nice, Kara, but some of us do have work to do.”

Kara hums in acknowledgement, her hands grazing Alex’s waist as she moves around her, leans forward to look at the documents Alex lays in front of her. She wants to swat her away, to tell her to go do her Supergirl thing and let her work, but she doesn’t.

Kara is a distraction. She’s idle hands and a wagging tongue that swallows time when she should be productive, when she should be earning her place here, but Alex doesn’t want her to go. She doesn’t want her to leave when her presence is enough to make her forget, if only for a moment, about the guilt that eats away at her.

On the field Kara makes her push harder, work more to prove herself, but here she is the calm of a quiet sea, the white noise of the ocean when she plunges under, the waves knocking her off her board. She’s the force of the undertow pulling at her, beckoning her to follow where she leads.

“You made a mistake here,” Kara says pointing at something on the sheet closest to her. “The force of the bullet wouldn’t let it penetrate cement without destroying it if it’s that high, much less let you put down someone without blowing a chunk out of them.”

She does swat Kara then, pushes her aside as she pulls her papers toward her. She knows that Kara’s right, that somewhere that brain of hers has already solved more than just the force problem R&D’s been having, but she doesn’t need her to bring herself this low when there’s something better, something purer for her out there.

Alex frowns at that, at the way the voice in her head sounds like her mother’s scolding, like Clark.

Kara wraps her arms around her again, rests her chin on her shoulder. It makes her curse the growth spurt the other woman had hit when they were teens, curse the fact that Kara is younger than her but she’s still the one comforting her in this situation.

“Where’d you go?”

“Morroco,” she says lightly, inhaling. Kara’s always smelled so good. “December, 1941.”

“Bourbon isn’t exactly your drink of choice, Alex.”

There’s a slight drawl in her voice that makes her shiver, but she doesn’t pull away. That’s not how the game goes.

“Maybe, but I doubt you’d walk into a gin-joint.”

“Like you would own one.”

Alex giggles, pulls away now as she turns to hold onto Kara’s shoulder.

“Now that we know that you can get drunk off of Aldebaran rum, this is even funnier.”

Kara smiles at that, her fingers warm as they play with Alex’s hand. For a while, it feels like it’s just the two of them against the world. It’s enough until it’s not and only then does she push away from her, push her out of the lab.

“Go on you. I have work to do and Snapper’s probably waiting to chew you out over a comma or something.”

“Snapper can wait, you know.” Kara bites her lip, sways where she stands. “I don’t mind staying, not really.”

Alex shakes her head, retreats a little.

“Maybe you don’t but I need to get this done. Sisters’ night tonight to make it up?”

“Can’t.” There’s something in her voice, longing maybe, but for what she can’t tell. “I have a thing with Lena.”

“Luthor?”

Kara smiles and Alex has her answer. She tries to ignore the way her stomach knots at that, the way her heart sinks. The distance isn’t shrinking between them, not yet.

“Another night then.”

“Tomorrow?”

Alex smiles ruefully, nods. She can do this, can give Kara what she needs, even if that means giving her away for a night.

If her hands shake as she watches her leave, it’s only because she hasn’t really eaten since lunch the previous day. If her eyes are a little wet, it’s only because the air in the lab is too dry.

The need to follow returns, to chase after her, but she stays where she is, forces herself to turn, retreat into the tedium of scrubbing R&D's designs. She works and works and works, tries to bury those feelings beneath the boredom and frustration of running the same calculations over and over again, but it doesn't help.

She still wants, still needs. She still feels that urge to go, to be near Kara again.

With a growl, Alex throws down the screwdriver she's using to try to open up one of the samples the R&D lab had sent to her, stalks out into the comms center. Grabbing Vasquez, she marches down to the training rooms, finds one that's empty.

"You're not going to change, Ma'am?"

Alex growls, charges at the other woman with a feint to the right before kicking to the left. The agent groans as she blocks, and Alex knows that her arm is going to bruise where it met her leg.

"One of those days then."

Vasquez retaliates, tries to flip her onto her back, but she uses the momentum to backflip onto her feet and deliver a jab to the right followed by an uppercut with her right fist. Neither connects, but that's not what this is about.

"You're falling behind," Alex says after a while. She's panting, hands on her knees as she bends forward. "You need to train more."

Vasquez smirks.

"Maybe, but I'm not the one who's out of breath right now. Maybe more training, less sex and you can beat me, Ma'am."

Alex doesn't reply, hates that she's right. Instead, she pushes herself forward, harder as she lashes out, tries to forget everything that feels so wrong right now. It doesn't quite work, but she's gotten good at pretending that it does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're officially on a timeline! LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS.


	5. Chapter 5

Kara’s hands are shaking as she presses the plunger down on the syringe. Lena’s busy tonight, some meeting with the new assistant district attorney that keeps her from coming to the lab in time for her next hit. It doesn’t matter, doesn’t mean anything, except that it does.

The red is glowing brighter now. It’s been three days, three reductions in the reagent and already she can taste the way it changes her, can feel the rush of her blood  as it pulse through her body faster, more erratically. She almost drops the syringe as she lets herself revel in the high for a moment, almost spills the precious liquid before she can finish the shot.

The rush increases when she squeezes the last of the red into her veins, tosses the syringe across the room. The bulb shatters against the wall from the force of her throw, scatters across the floor in glistening shards. It’s pretty, the way it falls apart, shines as the bright fluorescent lights hit the broken glass.

There’s fire in her body again, the need to move more than enough to get her up off the table. It guides her, pushes her to the ground floor of the building, up to the roof. The underground lab stifles, encloses itself around her and all she wants is the open sky.

The air is cold, biting. She hovers above L-Corp, watches as cars pass below her. If she wanted, she could swoop down right then, crush them in her hands until nothing is left but twisted metal, destroyed flesh. It would be so easy, so satisfying.

Humans, she thinks, don’t understand just how weak they are, how utterly worthless they can be. They don’t understand the kind of fear that they should, don’t pay attention to it enough to understand just what they are to other species.

“Supergirl, we need you at the D.E.O.” J’onn’s voice crackles in her ear, the primitive design of the Bluetooth device distorting the sound. She’ll have to take it apart later, improve on it to meet her standards. “There’s something you need to see.”

She doesn’t really want to go, but Kara knows what it will look like if she doesn’t, what suspicions will fall. She’s not ready for that, not ready to execute that part of her plan just yet.

Besides, playing along will be fun, she thinks when she remembers that Alex will be on duty tonight.

* * *

 

“What is this?”

There’s a rage that bubbles beneath the surface of her skin, an anger that’s spreading with a speed she can’t control. The red she thinks, glances down. There’s no sign of it, but she can’t afford not to be careful, can’t let herself be seen just yet.

Kara glances at the screen again, watches as her aunt’s body is snatched away from its pod. Her fingers shake, arms trembling as she resists the urge to fly, to find whoever has done this.

“J’onn?”

“We think this was taken the night after you and Non…”

It’s Alex who answers, who trails off hesitantly when she turns to glare at her. She wants to rage, to destroy the room around her, but she holds back, pushes the anger down as much as she can.

There’s a hand on her shoulder, a weight pressing her down. J’onn is beside her now, keeping her from hovering. The tension in her body releases at his hold, her muscles relaxing just enough for her to slump into him. He doesn’t let her go, doesn’t move his hand, but the weight lessens, the pressure lighter now that she submits.

Kara doesn’t want to, doesn’t think she should, but part of her still recognizes him, still sees the comfort in his actions. The red isn’t totally in control yet, isn’t blinding her to all the ways J’onn is still the man she knows, is still there for her.

She takes a breath, forces her body to calm down.

“Why is it that we’re just seeing this?”

“Anonymous donor,” Winn chimes in. “No digital signature, no way to trace their IP. It just…showed up on our servers three hours ago in an encrypted file. Gotta admire whoever made it. They’re really good.”

She ignores him, focuses on her breathing as she stares at the screen. So close. Astra, her aunt was so close, and she could do nothing, could not save her from this.

A symbol catches her eye, the familiarity of it sending a chill through her. She knows what it means, knows what she must do now.

C.A.D.M.U.S. will burn, she thinks. C.A.D.M.U.S. will suffer, will fall at her hands. They will learn the respect that the Great and Noble House of El demands, will learn what it means to taint the body of a daughter of Ze.

Her bones creak as she clenches her fists, muscles and tendons straining. Alex catches her eye, reaches out to grab her fingers. The heat in her cools a bit at the contact, cools when Alex’s thumb strokes her hand as she draws her away from the agents crowded around the screens in the comms center.

“Come on Supergirl,” she murmurs, never stopping her ministrations. “This isn’t the time or place.”

She walks with her for a while, lets Alex lead the way through the maze that is the D.E.O.’s offices until she’s in the training room that had been set aside for her. Once the door is closed, she can feel the sting of Kryptonite on her skin, can feel the way it slithers across her flesh until the radiation sinks in.

For a moment, she wonders if this is absolutely necessary, if Alex trusts her so little, but then she remembers that this is the only way she can be beaten, the only way she can be controlled. It makes her growl beneath her breath, makes her seethe.

She’s tired of this game, of allowing them to control her. She’s tired of having to act like their perfect little mascot, like the kind of inept little girl Kal wants her to be.

Her knuckles hurt when she punches Alex’s side, moving low and fast. A kick to her ribs deflected. Alex pushing her hand to the side. Kara ducks. Alex spins. They move in unison, almost in sync for the first time since Kara had begun training with her.

It’s almost laughable, how easy the red makes this, almost a shame that no one knows just how bad she would be as the girl who hides behind cardigans and a pair of glasses. This is freedom, of a sort. It’s liberation and catharsis and something else that hides beneath the surface, waiting, always waiting.

Alex runs at her and she side steps, grabs her hand. Flipping her over, Kara sinks down to pin her from behind. Like this, she can feel the heat of Alex’s body, the way her blood pounds as the adrenaline pushes her pulse to faster speeds.

That she can get this reaction out of her makes Kara smirk. The power is exhilarating, makes her forget, for a moment, that her traditions have been broken. It makes her forget the anger and the pain and the need to hurt that consumed her on seeing Astra’s body on that screen.

She blinks and she’s on her back, Alex on top of her. They’re both panting from exertion, sweat making Alex’s skin gleam. Kara reaches up, presses a hand against her chest. Curling her fingers, she lets her nails scrape a slow path across her flesh, feels the way Alex’s heart stutters against her palm before she moves it, pushes her off.

Alex looks her, expression unreadable, and it makes Kara wonder if this is too much too soon, if this is too suspicious. She can already see the way her actions have painted the other woman’s skin red, can see the angry pulsing lines where she might have pushed a little too hard.

“Sorry,” she mutters. “Didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine,” Alex says, shaking off her apology, moves to hold her close. “You okay? I haven’t seen you this angry in a while.”

Kara shakes her head, doesn’t say anything. She lets Alex wrap herself around her, inhales the scent of gun oil and leather that seems to have mixed into her natural scent and lets it calm her.  She lets Alex’s touch take away the hurt for a little while, lets the red sink below the surface in exchange for this moment.

There’s a moment where she’s calm, where she feels as if everything else has fallen away and there’s nothing left but the two of them. It’s always been like this with Alex, always been just the two of them in their own world, nothing to break through, but it’s not like that anymore. Alex’s phone going off reminds her of that, reminds her that it’s no longer just them, and then the red returns, blazing through her so intensely that she needs to push away from Alex before everything stops making sense.

“Kara?”

She shakes her head, keeps a hand between her and the agent. Nothing’s right yet, nothing’s wrong. Everything is just chaos in her head and all she can feel is this need to destroy, to burn something before it burns her.

Standing, she moves to shut down the emitters, to regain her powers. It’s a relief when the kryptonite is gone, the tension in her muscles lessening now that she can feel the solar energy return to her cells.

“I need to go,” she says, not looking at Alex. “I just…I’ll call you, okay?”

If she hears Alex calling her back, begging her to turn, to talk to her, she tells herself that it’s just an illusion. She tells herself that it will work out in the end.

* * *

 

She lands softly, not wanting her prey to hear her. Any other operation would see her bringing the attention to herself. She is Kryptonian and she was once meant to be seen, to be adored and feared, but not now. This requires subtlety, requires a level of covert movement that grinds on her.

The compound is like a maze, twisting, turning. She knows that she should be careful, but it’s likely that no one will see her before she sees them. A pro for a con, she supposes as she steps carefully.

Those who are unfortunate enough to cross her path are disabled immediately, quietly. Kara has watched Alex enough times to know that just the right amount of pressure in the right area is enough to drop someone without a sound, enough to render them unconscious, then dead if she wished.

Looking at the body at her feet, she thinks another time, another battle. Death is too suspicious, too much of a red flag for her to use it as much as she wishes she could.

The lab is easy enough to find. Follow the bodies. The more guards there are, the more likely it is that she’s closer to her destination. C.A.D.M.U.S., Kara thinks, isn’t very subtle, nor is it as foolproof an organization as it seems to think itself. After all, it takes only a moment to persuade the lone scientist in the room to take her where she needs to go.

She’d found him at work on a quantum drive, or the prototype of one, the technology so primitive that she immediately knew it would never work. All it really takes is the promise of knowledge, of the one thing he’d want most, or one of them, she thinks as she remembers the way his gaze had drifted down to the unzipped portion of her aunt’s old uniform.

The room he takes her to is large, huge machines on each wall connected to the single chamber in the center of the room. Kara steps forward, ignoring the scientist’s protests as she runs her hands across the glass front.

This she knows: once, long ago, Krypton had sent out ships, ships that would mimic the Matrix in its sacred role to seed other planets, other colonies with its future. Once, she’d been born in one of these, the genesis chamber alive, yearning to share that which made it so.

It pulses under her hands, living but not quite living. Everything that it is, is being drained out, pumped into a rudimentary dialysis machine and refueled into it along with a spark of energy harvested from the sun.

This too, Kara knows, recognizes. She’d seen it once, in Kal-El’s fortress, watched as he’d emerged from it filled with strength, purpose, _life_. She’d helped him then, had aided his understanding of how the device had worked.

Here, there is no understanding, only an abomination.

Her fingers curl under the pod’s hatch, presses in as she pries it open. It screams, begs for mercy, but she doesn’t care. Soon it will die, soon it will cease to exist in this condition. It should be thanking her instead.

Astra is light as she lifts her out, barely a fragment of what she once was. Her body is emaciated, scars where there should be perfect skin. Whatever has been pumped into her oozes out in multicolored pools of liquid and plasma where the lines have fallen out of her arms, her chest..

“What did you do to her?”

She doesn’t see, so much as hear the creaking of the man’s bones as he cringes behind her. His fear is a tangible thing, pheromones soaking the air with it as he stutters through an explanation of genome treatment and improved test results. It makes her grind her teeth in frustration as she checks Astra over, makes sure that there isn’t any other lasting damage.

Without looking back, she leaps, punches through the ceiling. Astra is weak, unconscious, and she doesn’t have long. Kara needs to get her under the sun, to get her to safety.

“Hold on,” she whispers to her aunt as she flies, “I’ve got you.”

There’s haste in her flight, a reckless speed Kara almost can’t control as she makes her way to the D.E.O.  building, reconsiders. She can’t land there, can’t explain the ways in which it seems wrong to expose the only family she has left to humans who would sooner lock her up than help.

Fly, the red says, flee. It redirects her course, pushes her instead to L-Corp, to the familiar laboratory where Lena could be, would be waiting for her. Quickly, she makes her way down to the basement, bypasses the security as she is wont to do.

There can be no delay, can be nothing that stops her now when she is so close, so close to getting everything back. She is so close to regaining all that she has lost and the red will not let her fail, will not let human technology stop her. In frustration, she almost wrenches the keypad out of the door, stopping herself only at the last moment.

Taking a breath, she punches in the code she’d been given weeks ago, pushes through the door before it can finish opening. Lena looks at her, surprised.

“Kara, what—”

“Fix her,” she says as she lays Astra out on the table. “She’s…she’s the only thing I have left of Krypton. Fix her, please.”

“Kara, I—”

“Please, Lena. I know it’s not the same as what we’ve been doing but you can fix this.”

“What about Alex? The D.E.O.?”

“They can’t be trusted with this. They’d just lock her up.”

Lena looks at her for a moment, searches for something Kara can’t figure out. Whatever she finds, it must be enough, because she’s rolling up her sleeves. For a moment, Kara’s joy pushes the red aside, her hope suffusing her with energy.

Finally, things are falling into place for her.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for alcohol abuse.

One day passes. Two. Three. It’s four days before Alex starts worrying about Kara, four days without her by her side. Four days without her interfering fingers in her projects, her touch, her voice in her ear telling her about her day. Four days without her is enough for Alex to go crazy, to start pacing, searching, wondering if this is the moment when Kara decides that enough is enough, that she’d rather stay with Clark than with her.

She knows it’s crazy, knows that Kara never goes back on a promise, would never just leave without telling her, but there’s a voice in her head. There’s a voice that tries to convince her that Kara is better off without her, that she’s somewhere unreachable, somewhere that Alex can only hope to get a glimpse of from afar.

It eats at her, tears away at every fiber in her body until she’s shaking, pacing across the lab as she waits for Winn to activate the tracker she’d planted on her cape, waits for him to find her Kara for her rather than going out herself because she can’t just do that anymore, can’t go out there with no thought for anyone but Kara anymore.

It’s driving her crazy but what can she do? What can she say to calm herself? To make this waiting easier for her than it is?

“Can’t you move this along?”

“The system’s moving as fast as it can which is…pretty fast.” Winn shrinks back at her glare. “Speeding up the search it is.”

Alex shakes her head, goes back to pacing. She needs to find Kara, needs to bring her home, to bring her back to her. She needs to protect her, to make sure she’s okay. She needs to hold her close because a close Kara is one who hasn’t left her, who hasn’t decided that the stars are more worthy of her presence than Alex herself is, had been.

She swallows at the thought, pushes it to the back of her head. No one can blame her for the time she’s spent with Maggie, can blame her for wanting to be happy with someone who is just her own, someone she doesn’t have to share, doesn’t have to worry about corrupting. No one can blame her for taking what she can get instead of asking for more, and being happy for once.

No one can blame her for learning to love someone other than Kara? Right?

She glances at the screen, sees the moment the tracker goes active and zeroes in on the coordinates. With each number, her heart sinks lower and lower. She knows those numbers, have them memorized.

Silently, she searches her lab just to be sure, to confirm results she instinctively doesn’t trust. There are boots in a cabinet, a skirt in another. The sigil Kara wears mocks her from a nook on a counter, but the worst of it is in her desk. A cape, red and vibrant flows in her hands as she feels the tracker there, feels the way it bumps against her where it shouldn’t have.

Kara doesn’t want to be found, doesn’t want Alex to find her, and she has to wonder if it has to do with Astra, has to wonder if Kara even still trusts her or if it’s all been a farce. She has to wonder how much of the past few months have been real, how much of it has been faked for her benefit because she knows Kara, knows that this was for her.

She wipes at her eyes, sends Winn out with a threat and a promise. She needs time to think, to come up with a plan that doesn’t involve drinking herself into a stupor. She needs to do something, anything, before Kara is hurt, killed.

She thinks and thinks and thinks, knows that this somehow involves Astra, involves C.A.D.M.U.S. somehow. She knows that the two are connected, that somehow Kara knows this as well, knows that there’s something more there than she wants to think about, but she doesn’t know what that is. She doesn’t know what _Kara_ has to do with it all.

Sighing, she turns on her computer, runs her own search algorithms until she has what she needs and then she begins sifting through the information. It dismays her, makes Alex want to scream in frustration, makes her want to give up and open the bottle in her desk, the one hidden by the cape with a simple note in Kara’s handwriting, but she doesn’t.

Instead, she just continues her search, pushes herself until she no longer sees anything but the letters and numbers on her screen.

* * *

 

 _Drink me_ , it had said, like some twisted version of _Alice in Wonderland_ where the drink didn’t make her bigger, just intoxicated her mind instead. Her fingers twitch with need, with desire, but she forces herself to keep them in her lap as she stares at the bottle, forces herself to keep them still instead of reaching out for the bottle itself.

 _Drink me_ , it seems to call and she has to grit her teeth in an effort to stay calm, to stay sober. She has to remind herself that this won’t help Kara, that drinking this won’t help her to find her any faster than her search is already going. She has to remind herself that drinking won’t help her to fix the mess they’ve found themselves in once more.

She glances out of her office, watches the sunlight glinting off of the L-Corp logo as it hits it just right. It’s the tallest building in the city now, eclipsing even CatCo World Media. Sometimes she wonders if Kara finds solace on that sign now, wonders if she’s traded one multi-billionaire for another before shaking the thought away.

Those are thoughts she can’t have, thoughts she has already put aside long before this day. They’re thoughts that she’s not permitted to have even now that she’s not alone, especially now that she’s not alone.

She reaches out to cradle the bottle in her hands, notes the way that Kara’s handwriting curls on the note. _Drink me_ , it says, as if it’s so easy to resist, as if it’s so easy to say no when Kara knows which brand, which vintage to give her if she wants to break her, to make her fall.

She chokes on the realization that this is exactly what this gift is meant to be, chokes on the thought that her Kara would see her destroyed, would want her to fall rather than accept her help. She chokes on the realization that maybe Kara had never forgiven her for her part in Astra’s death.

“Kara…”

The bottle almost goes sailing, but she stops herself before she can let go, forces her arm down until it’s clinking against the glass top of her desk. She can’t bring herself to waste it when she knows that one wrong step and she’ll want it more than anything else besides Kara.

Instead, she goes back to staring at it, goes back to wondering just what will happen when she finally opens it, when she finally allows herself to fall prey to her old vices. Desperation hasn’t quite set in right just yet, hasn’t quite done what it needs to for her to crack the bottle, but it’s still there.

It lies at the base of the spine, Kara’s name beating against her like a prayer, like a hymn that won’t end until she finds her, until she can know with her eyes and her hands that she’s okay. It’s there, waiting for her to open up, to unfold herself and just give into it when she can’t find her, when she can’t find a woman who refuses to be found by her.

* * *

 

The cork of the bottle is on the desk, a glass measured out beside it. Alex is staring at it, staring at the tawny colour of the whiskey, wondering. It’s all she can do, really. Wondering. It’s all Kara will let her do now that she’s gone into hiding.

She reaches out, traces the rim of the glass. It’s cold from the air condition, cranked up to freeze the glass. She’s shivering, but it’s okay. The glass is cold and all she can think is that maybe the whiskey is too. She’s desperate enough to pour it but not desperate to drink it hot or to look for ice.

She hasn’t touched it yet, but Alex can already taste the honey on her lips, can already feel the burn of the alcohol down her throat and the warmth of it spreading through her chest. Her heart beats Kara, Kara, Kara and her fingers tremble as they slip down the outside of the glass.

“Where are you, Kara?”

She almost expects an answer but there is none. There is no voice like sunshine saying she’s here, that she’s right here beside her. There is no voice telling Alex she’s nowhere else but at her side.

Oh, but that there was, she thinks.

* * *

 

Quarter of the bottle is gone and the world feels all kinds of floaty now. She thinks she can see the stars like this, thinks she can see galaxies on her walls. She remembers when Kara had first seen the office, remembers the squeal and the questions and the way she’d eyed the one wall she’d left purposefully blank and asked if she could paint something on it.

She’d said no, said that Kara had enough wall space in _her_ office to decorate on her own without invading Alex’s. She’d said no, but she’d installed a couch, stocked Kara’s favourites in the fridge under desk. She’d implanted Kara into corners of her office that should have been left blank, should have been hers instead of her sister’s.

She winces even thinking of the word, pushes the feeling away. Kara is her sister in every way, is her everything but only in a familial way. She has Maggie now, needs to stop the way she thinks of her before things go south again, needs to focus and find her before Maggie decides that being ignored for Kara again isn’t good enough.

She needs to not drink, to stop herself from pouring another glass, to detox and get back to work, but she can’t bring herself to do that. She can’t bring herself to cork the bottle, to push it aside or put it away. It’s a crutch, she knows, but she can’t help herself. She needs it by her side, needs it on her desk to get that nice fog between her and her feelings, her thoughts.

Only, it doesn’t work. She can still feel, can still tell exactly where her thoughts are headed before they get there. She can still feel all the things she’s not supposed to feel and it galls her, makes her hate herself for even entertaining the thought that she feels more than she’s supposed to.

She picks up the bottle and looks at it. Kara really outdid herself with this one. Part of her wonders how much it must have cost, wonders how much out of pocket Kara went for this one before going through the effort of hiding it. The expense doesn’t seem worth it when quarter’s already gone, drunk like water rather than the fine quality whiskey it really is.

It seems a shame, she thinks as she turns it around. The waste that’s occurring in her office should stop, should really, really be stopped before it becomes too much. The bottle tips over into a glass. Such good liquor should be appreciated, but the fog is going away too quickly, the numbness retreating too fast.

Alex’s fingers grasp the glass a little too tightly as she looks outside again, would be almost crushing if she wasn’t human. It’s enough to make her look down again, to make her throw the drink back and start pouring another.

* * *

 

The bottle is half finished and she’s staring at whorls in the glass. She’s drunk and curious and oh so sad. Kara’s not there but neither are the feelings associated with her. All she feels is sad, is this unending grief that pushes her past the point of tears, of crying to a place where she’s angry and sad and unable to function.

Alex tips the empty glass to the side, watches it roll nearly to the edge of the desk before catching it, pulling it back to her. She stares at it for a while, wonders just what she’s doing before she slams it down, flinches at the sound. It’s too loud, too intense, echoing in her mind until all she can hear is that one sound over and over again.

She pulls her hand back from the glass, leaves it where it is and leans back in her seat. Looking up at the ceiling, Alex has to wonder if this is why Kara left the bottle with her, if she knew that this is what would happen. She has to wonder if this was her plan all along, if she wanted Alex incapacitated so she wouldn’t chase after her, her and…Astra?

Alex straightens up. Astra, Astra, Astra. She’s always wondered how much Kara resents her, wondered how much Astra lies between the two of them and isn’t it always that? Isn’t it always the reminders of just how alien Kara truly is that separate them, keep them apart when they should be stronger together?

She’s never been able to deny it, never been able to fully refute the sight of Kara standing there, tall and proud in her uniform, as anything other than alien, a goddess among men destined to be greater, to be _better_ than humans, than _her_.

She’s never been able to escape from that truth and now it’s here, mocking her with a whiskey bottle. She almost wants to laugh at how predictable she is, how easy it is for Kara to read her, to know how she will react before she even does.

Groggily, Alex stands. The world tilts but she ignores it, makes her way out from behind her desk to the window and stares at the L-Corp logo again. There’s something tugging at the back of her mind, a fact so important that she needs to remember it but, in her drunken state, she has no idea why.

A dot appears on the skyline, a figure that she can barely make out moving away from the building in a vaguely familiar direction. She squints, tries to focus her sight enough to figure out what it is, only to slap a hand to her forehead. She feels like an idiot for not realizing, for not thinking.

Looking around, lost, her eyes fall on the bottle. Even in her drunken state, she knows that more would not be a good idea at the moment, but she can’t bring herself to empty it into the sink. Instead, she corks it, stashes it back into her desk under the cape. She takes a moment to run the material through her fingers before closing the drawer.

 _Just in case_ , she thinks.

* * *

 

Her fingers are shaking on the trigger of the gun. She’s waited the mandatory period but now she’s itching to find Kara, to find what’s going on. Everything about this screams of something she can’t place, something that terrifies her to no end, but she doesn’t know what it is. All she knows is that L-Corp and Lena Luthor, most likely, are involved; that her very alien sister is involved with a Luthor.

It frightens her to her core, makes her shake with a fear she can’t name. Walking through the empty lobby area, it makes her want to throw back more whiskey, makes her want find the woman and demand to know why Kara was here, how she knows about her and why Kara would expose her secret like that to someone she barely knows.

It makes her want to shoot something, anything, just to do something more than wait.

Shaking her head of the thought, Alex holds up her hand and points to the elevator bank across the floor. She leads her team and they separate into three groups, Alex’s headed to the top floor. She’s not sure what she’s going to find, not sure if there _is_ anything to find, but she can’t let this go, can’t let Kara go so easily.

The top floor yields nothing. Neither does the next. With each successive floor, Alex tries not to deflate more and more. It’s hard to keep hoping when she can’t find any sign of Kara, any sign of the girl who brought her here, who keeps her tethered close through some kind of weird pull that she can’t escape.

There’s a hand on her waist, laughter in her ear. She looks around warily, eyes trained on her surroundings, but there’s nothing and no one. They’d come in early to ensure that, come in just to make sure no one got caught in the crossfire.

“Ma’am? Your orders?”

She looks to the agent who spoke, nods at him.

“Trap 1, continue moving down. Trap 2, spread out through the building, sweep the floors for anything we might have missed.”

“Roger that, Trap Leader.”

She steps forward, feels a hand on her stomach, smells citrus and lavender in the air. She closes her eyes for a second, lets the scent surround her. She knows it, knows what it means and who it belongs to so well.

“Trap 1, she’s somewhere up here. Do not engage if hostile.”

“Roger that, Trap Leader. Spreading out.”

Alex hoists the rifle up higher against her, opens her eyes. Her fingers are finally steady enough to risk holding them where they’re supposed to be. There’s a smirk on her lips as she moves forward.

So this is the game Kara wants to play, the game she’s always excelled at. She’ll let her play, let her lead them on this chase and when she’s done, she’s going to get the answers she’s come for.


	7. Chapter 7

She stalks her, licks her lips as she watches her from her perch on the ceiling. It would be slightly ridiculous, the way she hovers, vibrating at a speed that lets her remain invisible, but this is a hunt and she’s willing to do _anything_ to catch her prey.

As she watches her, Kara thinks it’s a shame that Alex is dressed in her tactical gear. Such a pretty face in such a distasteful uniform. It makes her want to tear it apart, take her then and there instead of waiting like the hunter she knows that she was meant to be.

She ducks behind Alex, runs her fingers down her spine before flashing off to the wall again. Alex shivers, looks around before raising her gun again. Kara can see the tension in her shoulders, the way her smile becomes brittle when she doesn’t spot her.

It makes her want to break the game, to claim her prize before the chase truly begins, but she can’t do that, not when those shameful excuses for soldiers still surround her. She’s not in the mood to play with such boring creatures when every cell in her body craves something better, something worthy of a god like her.

“Come on, Kara. Let’s talk this out.”

She recognizes the tone of voice, the playful lilt that hides the worry Alex can’t quite rid herself of. It makes her sneer, disappoints her in a way that she hasn’t been in a while. She should have known better. Alex is human, after all, incapable of escaping her weakness the way Kara has, the way she continues to escape it.

She slips through the cracks of a door, knocks over a desk before slipping out again. Let the team in front of her deal with that distraction while she moves on, sets her trap for her prey.

Kara retreats to the lab, bumps up the security she’d spent the night installing. Lena isn’t here, is still out of the city looking for a white whale she won’t find. She knows this, knows exactly how hard it is to find that specific iteration of kryptonite when the odds are that someone has destroyed the facility already.

She smirks at that, remembers watching Lex Luthor’s legacy go up in flames when even Kal El couldn’t bring himself to do this. He’s a fool, she thinks, as she paces. He allows his enemies the kind of power to create something that can hurt him, to exploit his weaknesses when he should use his powers to be worshipped.

She sneers at the thought of the primary color scheme he wears, the way he flaunts their arms like something trivial when it is something that only the worthy should be allowed to wear.  Kal El hasn’t gone through the trials, hasn’t experienced the ways of their people the way Kara has. He’s not the true heir to their house, isn’t even a true Kryptonian.

She remembers Myriad, remembers just how weak Kal was to it. She’d never have thought of that, never have believed that he could fall so easily, but what did she know? After all, Kal doesn’t understand what their arms mean, could never really grasp the true power and potential of their people.

She shakes her head, clears it of such thoughts. She’ll deal with him later, teach him what it truly means to be Kryptonian, what he will have to earn. For now, she needs to focus on Alex, to change her plans and re-adjust how she thinks about her.

After all, Alex is human too, is so painfully human that she fails to dispose of her lesser emotions. She’s not an equal, not a goddess come to life as she had initially thought, but no matter. Alex has a place, has a purpose. She just has to show her.

* * *

 

Kara leans back in her seat, watches as Alex gets further and further away from her. It’s almost constantly disappointing to watch, the way she seems to fail to notice the clues she’s left, the way she follows leads that pan out into nothing.

Perhaps she’s miscalculated, she thinks. Perhaps she’s overestimated her opponent, made the mistake of thinking that she’s better than she actually is. It wouldn’t be the first time Alex has done this after all, the first time she’s failed to live up to Kara’s expectations.

Pursing her lips, she begins to plan, to put more thought into how she wants to play this. It wouldn’t do to simply give up when she can use Alex’s eagerness to play against her, to end the game before it’s even begun.

She hits a button on the keyboard, activates the direct line to Alex’s comm link. It’s almost ridiculous how easy it is to hack the system, to bypass every security measure the D.E.O. has in place to prevent exactly this.

“Hello, _sister_.”

“Kara? Kara where are you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She runs her finger along the surface of the desk, watches as it cracks beneath her touch “Want to come find me? Take me in?”

“I just want you to be safe, Kara. You know that’s all I want for you.”

“Is it? Or do you want to control me? To have me under your fingers, willing to do whatever you want me to do while you get the satisfaction of knowing that you have a goddess under you power?”

“What? That’s not…Kara, I…you know that’s not true.” The worry in her voice increases, colours her tone with something that makes her lip curl. “I just want to protect you. You know that.”

 “Do I? Or is there something you want that you can’t get? After all, why run from me to someone so…small?”

“I…what are you talking about?”

She scoffs. “Don’t pretend you haven’t been pushing me away for your detective, Alex. Pretending that you want the best for me when you’re constantly running? Telling me that I should be with Mon El? That maybe I want him when he’s nothing but a pathetic boy playing at something he can never hope to be? As if I would ever be with a Daxamite?”

“Kara that’s…that’s not what I…you should have said something.”

“Should I? You’re blind, Danvers, blind and weak. You need something to control, to make you feel powerful when the truth is, you can’t even control your own life.”

There’s a wounded sound on the other end of the line, a cross between a cry of pain and a whimper that might have broken her before. Now, now she’s just bored.

“You’re not even worth playing with, are you? So focused on bringing me back to the D.E.O. that you think I’ll come if you rescue me from the big bad Luthor.”

She watches Alex stop, zooms the camera in on her until she can see her swallow. Kara smiles grimly as she leans back in her seat. There’s a part of her that tells her to stop acting like a cartoon villain, to get it over and done with already, but she wants to _play_ with Alex, to reel her in and take her the way she’d always meant to do.

“Want to know a secret?”

“I..what? You can tell me anything.”

“Can I? Or are you going to run to Papa J’onn as soon as I tell you like the good little soldier you pretend to be?” She laughs. “We both know how much you love your vices, don’t we, Alex?”

Alex makes a strangled noise.

“Kara, that’s not…that’s not important right now. Right now you can trust me. I won’t tell anyone, I swear. Just you and me and our secrets, I promise.”

Kara smiles, can feel the pointedness of it as she watches the screen. Alex isn’t moving but her eyes are looking around desperately, trying to find her, to see if she can save her. Kara recognizes that look, revels in it as she watches her move.

“You’re looking for the wrong villain in this story.”

“What? Kara, what do you mean? Who did this? What are you talking about?”

Kara smirks. “This? This is freedom.”

“What? What is?”

“You really want to know? Why don’t you come and find me? Or is it too hard for the poor little human to manage on her own?”

Alex growls, her frustration evident in her voice to Kara. She knows her too well, knows every reaction and inflection of her voice and it makes something in her run hot to know that she can elicit this reaction even like this, perhaps more so because she can finally _see_ what she’s been blind to.

“Fine. You want me? I’ll come to you and then you’re going to answer _my_ questions.”

Kara switches off the cameras, stands and picks up her comm link.

“You’re not the one in control, Alex. You may think you are but this is my game.”

* * *

 

She filters through the sounds in the building. It’s too early for anyone but the D.E.O. agents to be inside, not late enough for even the early risers to arrive. Still, it’s too loud, too much of everything filtering into her suddenly hurting head.

Gritting her teeth, Kara presses another dose of the red K serum into her flesh, waits until it’s flowing in her blood before tossing the syringe against the wall and moving forward again. She doesn’t wait for it to shatter this time, doesn’t wait for the glass to blink up at her in the artificial light, not when the need to hunt is so overpowering that she can’t stop herself from moving.

She floats up to the ceiling, scans the area for agents. None of them are near her, none of them close enough for her play. As seems to be the case lately, Kara is disappointed by this, disappointed by the lack of entertainment to alleviate her of her boredom.

“Come out, come out wherever you are, sister.”

Alex’s reply is a snort, derisive and almost mean, except this is Alex and she’ll always be weak for her. Kara knows this, exploits it for what it is.

“We’re meant to be together forever, Alex. You and me? We can’t stay away from each other.”

“That’s…you shouldn’t think that way.”

“Shouldn’t I? Weren’t you the one to fly into space and pull me from the cold? The one who destroyed my perfect world because you don’t know how to live without me? I’m surprised you even tried to run.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“Don’t you?” Kara spots her on one of the higher floors, likely the executive floor where Lena’s office is located. “Foolish girl, denying what this really is.”

“And what’s that?”

She watches as Alex moves cautiously, licks her lips at the movement of taut muscles above her. Foolish, foolish human, she thinks. So easily caught for all of her caution.

“What do you think it is? All those moments of denial, of holding back from what you wanted most…”

Alex cringes and Kara smirks, floats her way up the stairs. It wouldn’t do to smash through the ceiling, to give the game away before it’s time to act. Rather, she has to be careful, has to move slowly so as to not alert her prey.

Alex knows her, knows what she’ll do normally, but this is different. She doesn’t know this version of her and Kara wants to play with that, to play with Alex. She wants to make her bend to her wishes, wants to see her on her knees.

She shudders at the thought, licks her lips again. She wants this so much, wants this more than anything at the moment.

It makes her speed up, makes her reach Alex’s floor in moments. She scans the rooms again, looks for any sign of her, only to find none.

“Well, well, well. Looks like you’re learning.”

“Can’t make this easy for you, can I?”

There’s the cocking of a gun, the sound of the hammer being pulled. Kara holds her hands up, turns slowly before grabbing the gun, pulling it out of Alex’s grip and tossing it down the stairwell.

“Ineffective, at best, Agent Danvers.” She contemplates her for a second before lashing out, kicking her knees out from under her. “I thought you were better than that.”

“Oh, you have no idea.”

Alex runs at her, moving to kick her chest. Kara steps to the side, grabs her leg and swings her into the railing. She’s careful not to let go, not to throw her over it. That would defeat the purpose of this fight and she has no time to deal with the consequences of such an action.

She pulls her back, slams her into the wall. With a bloody smile, Alex head butts her, pushes her away. Kara staggers a little, wonders how she could do that, when she sees the bright green lining of her uniform.

“Of course. Couldn’t really fight me without your little tools, could you?”

“How else am I supposed to catch you?”

“Cheater.”

“You’re the cheater.”

Kara pouts at that, grabs her again and moves to tear the lining away. Alex slaps her hands off of her, pushes her hard. Kara stumbles into the railing, almost would have gone over had it not been for her perfect balance.

She glares at Alex.

“You really think you can stand up to a god?”

Alex doesn’t answer, just rushes her. This time Kara does go over the railing. She grabs at Alex’s clothes, holds her close as they fall. She struggles to right herself, this close to Kryptonite, but she can’t let Alex go, can’t let her fall to her death.

She only manages to do so right before they hit the ground, rising quickly to a floor without agents. Only then does she let Alex go, breathing raggedly. It’s hard to catch her breath when she’s exposed herself to her weakness so much.

Her head swims and she has to hold onto the wall. Her vision flashes red and she has to push Alex away when she tries to approach her. Kara pats her clothes down, tries to look for another syringe, but there isn’t any there. She’s out of serum and she can’t just leave Alex here to get more.

“Kara? Kara, come on.”

When Alex gets her hands on Kara this time, she growls and pushes her hard, turns and slams her against the wall again, driving her fist into her stomach. Alex lets out a sharp breath, blood flying from her lips onto Kara’s clothes.

“You don’t get to touch me how you want, sister. That’s not your role in this.”

“And what…what is my role?” Alex is wheezing. Kara scans her for damage but her ribs and lungs are fine, though the muscles are a little bruised. “What am I supposed to be doing?”

Kara leans in close, runs her nose along her neck and jaw. She can hear Alex’s breath hitch, can hear the way it comes in stilted gasps once the contact begins. She grins, a feral, predatory thing as she licks her skin.

“Gods need pleasure too, Alexandra...”

The name rolls off her tongue in a drunken haze. Now that she’s this close, Kara finds herself intoxicated by her scent. She can’t help herself when she breathes in, can’t stop herself from sucking on the skin beneath her lips.

She feels Alex gasp beneath her, feels her scrabble for purchase against the wall behind her. She grabs her hands, presses them above her as she pulls her gear off.

“It would be so easy to take you here…”

Alex swallows and Kara bites down on her pulse point. She feels her gasp rather than hears it, feels the way she tries to get closer, tries to get away from her at the same time.

Kara runs her fingers across her stomach, scratches down her abs. Alex bucks into her, pants against her hair as she kisses her neck slowly. She rewards her with a palm pushing her back against the wall, teeth scraping against her skin.

“Good girl, but not yet.”

Red flashes across her vision again and she has to close her eyes, has to center herself before she can continue. She wants this, needs this, but she can’t let herself slip up, can’t let herself mess this up before she can get what she wants.

“Kara. Kara please. Something is wrong, isn’t it?” Alex’s words are far away, almost as if she’s hearing them underwater. “Tell me what’s wrong, Kara. Let me help you, please. Tell me and let me find a cure for whatever this is?”

Kara shakes her head, tries to clear it. She doesn’t need this, doesn’t need Alex’s voice in her head telling her that something is wrong, that something inside of her is broken. She doesn’t need her telling her that this freedom is wrong.

She tightens her grip on Alex’s wrists, bites down harder. Alex presses closer to her, her blood pounding in Kara’s ears. She wants more of this, wants her closer, beneath her skin until she doesn’t know where she ends and Alex begins.

Kara pulls her away from the wall, hefts her over her shoulder as she carries her to Lena’s office. If she’s going to do this, she needs both of them to be comfortable, needs Alex to give into her before she can take her.

She doesn’t really care about Alex’s pleasure, doesn’t care if she gets anything from this, but she will be more pliant if she’s comfortable, more likely to give in to her and Kara cares only about getting what she wants in this moment, only cares about fulfilling her own pleasure somewhere other than a stairwell like some dirty secret.

Only, she can’t bring herself to do it when she has Alex beneath her, can’t lower herself on shaking arms. She blinks once, blinks twice. She tries to get rid of the voice in her head telling her that this is wrong, that she’s better than this, but it won’t go, won’t leave her alone. It won’t let her do what she wants and all Kara knows before she blacks out, before she collapses on Alex, is the feeling of being torn apart.


	8. Chapter 8

Kara’s weight on her body is a wake-up call for Alex. There’s something wrong here, something that she’s missing, but she can’t figure out what it is, can’t figure out why Kara would act like this, would be like this when everything that could possibly cause it had been eliminated last year, had been moved so far from her that Alex had been gone for days, just ensuring that it would never reach her again.

She strokes through her hair, runs her fingers down Kara’s back. She remembers this uniform, remembers the nightmares that accompanied it, the fear that Kara would never truly look at her the way she used to again. She remembers the way Kara had stared at it after, had pushed it so far into her closet that it had seemed like she’d just forgotten about it in time.

Looking at her now, Alex has to wonder just how much she’s been hiding from her, just how much Kara has been hurting herself when she’s made herself look away. There’s a tightness to her frown, something like despair in the way her face scrunches as she dreams and all Alex can wonder is when had it all fallen so far down the rabbit hole that she can’t find a way back up.

She sighs, pushes Kara off of her gently and sits up, surveys the mess that is her own body. All her gear is gone, stripped and dropped to the ground in the stairwell. She barely remembers it, can only remember the panic and then the surrender when Kara had pressed herself against her. She barely remembers anything but the way she felt under her, the way she’d just wanted to hold her close and never let her go again.

She shakes her head. She can’t do this right now, can’t think about it when she needs to help her, needs to get her somewhere safe and then have Winn track Lena Luthor down. She can’t think about the things she’s pushed down since last year when something is wrong with Kara, something that makes her entire body pulse with a familiar red that she doesn’t want to believe, doesn’t want to think about without wondering how she could not notice, how she could just let it slip past her so easily.

Kara is light, lighter than she usually is, and it takes all that Alex has for her not to peel the uniform away, for her to keep holding her instead of checking her body for any inconsistencies and injuries. There will be time for that later, time to make sure that everything is okay when she can get her somewhere safe, somewhere secure.

Grunting under her sister, Alex takes a step forward, then another. She moves slowly, tries not to jar her too much as she moves. Waking Kara now would be bad, would be something that they’d all regret as soon as it happens. She can’t do that, can’t risk her team like that in the name of speed when she has time to do this, has the time she needs to get her out of there without more damage.

She stumbles, her side hurting with each breath that she takes. There’s nothing broken, she doesn’t think, but it still hurts to breathe, still hurts to move like this. Kara slumps against her and she has to grit her teeth to keep from crying out as the movement causes her to drop to her knees, to slip down until she’s holding herself up with one hand as the other holds Kara on her back.

This won’t do, can’t do when she needs to get her out of there. She can’t do this by herself, it seems, can’t get out of there without help. She sighs, taps her comm. There’s static on the other end and, for a second, she thinks that it’s been damaged, but then her team reports in.

“Davis, Wesley. I need you guys up in the executive suite to help me with something. Patterson, my gear is in the southern stairwell. Collect and bag it before we get out of here.”

“On the way, Trap Leader.”

“En route.”

“Acknowledged.”

Alex taps the comm off, tries to get into a better position as she waits for Davis and Wesley, but she can’t. Her lungs burn with the effort to breathe under Kara but she can’t just drop her just yet. She can’t let her go when her entire world has narrowed to her in that moment.

She shakes her head, waits another five minutes until Wesley and Davis arrive. Her throat closes up the longer she waits, feels like there’s something squeezing it in a vice. Her chest hurts with the effort to breathe past it, hurts with the effort to figure out how to get past the pain in her chest that makes her feel like her ribs are collapsing into themselves.

Footsteps echo in the empty halls, catches her attention as she looks up to see Wesley and Davis approach. She signals them to come in, gestures to the woman on her back and watches as they take her from her. She wants to rail against this, to protest almost immediately, but she can’t, not when everything hurts.

There’s an arm around her shoulder as she tries to get up, a body next to hers supporting her, helping her to stand. Confused, she looks to her right, relaxes when she recognizes the figure next to her, staring ahead as he follows Wesley and Davis out of the room. She leans into him, lets him support her weight as she walks, eyes only on Kara, always on Kara and praying that she doesn’t wake up, that she doesn’t hurt anyone else when she should be enough.

* * *

 

“Calm down, Sam.”

She doesn’t look up as she speaks, doesn’t give him the benefit of seeing her face as she plays with Kara’s fingers, waits for her to wake up. She can’t look up when she’s tracing the red lines marking her blood vessels with a pen, pressing down every so often and watching the reaction with limited interest.

The examination isn’t necessary, isn’t even informative when she knows what this is, what this has always been. It isn’t something she feels like doing but the procedural nature of it helps to calm her, to center her when everything feels adrift again.

“How can you ask me that when you’re five seconds away from blaming yourself for this?”

Alex grits her teeth, throws her pen at his head. When he catches it, she rolls her eyes and goes back to prodding Kara with her fingers, cringing at how easily she can feel her bones. There’s something wrong here, something that isn’t just causing muscle deterioration but vaporizing it completely. She frowns as she continues to press down, notes the areas where it’s been the worst.

When she bends to examine further, Alex sees the puncture marks, sees what shouldn’t exist, not with Kara under this sun. She picks up her arm, grabs a sunlamp and directs it at the hole. It doesn’t close up, doesn’t disappear and Alex has to wonder exactly what Kara’s been doing to herself.

“Something wrong boss?”

She nods, grabs his arm to stop him from coming closer as she redoes the restraints on Kara’s arms. She looks up, serious now, eyes furrowed. He recoils from her slightly, but she doesn’t care, not when she’s standing and moving to her computer. She pulls up the files from the last red kryptonite incident, looks through all the pictures she’d taken for examination.

The lack of puncture marks then and their presence now confuses her, makes her question her original hypothesis. As far as she knows, Kara only needs to be exposed to it to be affected. Kryptonite in all its forms doesn’t need to be ingested to hurt her, doesn’t need to ever see the inside of her body to do the kind of damage it does.

This confuses her, sends her searching for answers that she can’t find. Frustrated, she turns back to Kara, injects her with a stimulant. She counts to ten, taps her fingers against the table as she waits, stares when they’re grabbed by a too strong grip.

“Welcome back to the world of the living, Kara.”

“What did you do to me?”

There’s an anger in her voice that Alex hasn’t heard in a long time. Behind her, Sam shifts, goes on the defensive, but she holds up her hand. The restraints are still active, glowing green against the red lines on Kara’s skin. She trusts them, trusts that they will do a better job than she ever had in holding Kara back, in stopping her before anyone could get hurt.

“You’re currently restrained by an advanced design of the kryptonite restraints we used on you that first time. I can’t risk you hurting anyone in this facility, Kara.”

Kara shakes, struggles against her bonds, but Alex shakes her head, runs her fingers up Kara’s arm as she stares at her. She grips her shoulder, switches the lamp to a kryptonite filter she’d installed only hours ago. Kara’s body slackens under the radiation, goes weaker than Alex had calculated for. She makes note of that with one hand, gives Sam the folder and waits for him to leave before she sits, stares at Kara.

“Tell me what you did.”

“Why? So you can control me again? Well guess what, Alex. That’s over.” She turns her head to face her, smile becoming lecherous. It makes Alex shift uncomfortably, makes her want to reach for her gun and a bottle. “Or maybe you want something else, hmm? I mean, we were getting somewhere, weren’t we?”

She swallows, doesn’t dare think about what Kara’s talking about. There’s something there, something below the surface that terrifies her, sends her into a panic whenever she tries to think about it, so she doesn’t. She pushes it down and waits for her heart to calm down before she looks at Kara again, tries to figure out what to say.

“You’re hurt, somehow. I don’t know how or why but you are and I swear, Kara, I’m going to help you.” There’s a conviction to her voice that she doesn’t feel but she needs to convince her anyway, needs to buy herself time as she waits for Winn to do what he does best and finds Lena. “I just need you to calm down and let me help you. We’re sisters, after all.”

Kara scoffs, sends her a look of disgust that makes her heart sink.

“Sisters? I’ve told you before Alex. We’ve never been sisters. We’re not blood and we’ll never be blood. You should know that by now.”

Alex shakes her head, feels tears welling in her eyes, but she pushes it down again. She can’t let Kara see her become weak, not when she’s like this, not when she can see the red pulsing along her body.

“We are sisters. Blood doesn’t matter to us, remember? Blood has never mattered when it comes to us.”

Kara shakes her restraints, tries to get out of them, but Alex has been thorough, has run the numbers and the simulations through research and design over and over again. She’s sure of this, sure of her own design in a way she hasn’t been sure of anything in a long time.

There’s a shuffling behind her and Samuel taps her shoulder. Kara notices him and her smile is feral.

“Hello there.”

Alex shoots him a glare, needs him not to engage her. He seems to understand, steps back a little as he motions for her to follow. They don’t speak, don’t need to in that moment when it’s crucial that Kara not know what’s happening. She’s grateful that he knows this, that he understands enough to motion slightly to where Lena Luthor is being escorted in without saying anything. Alex doesn’t acknowledge him, doesn’t give any indication that she understands, but he nods anyway, walks out and leaves her to stare at Kara and wonder just how bad things had gotten while she’d turned away.

* * *

 

She doesn’t bother with a preamble when she takes a seat in front of Lena. She doesn’t need to when it’s obvious that the woman knows why she’s here, knows what they are and what they do. There’s none of the wide eyed wonder she’s used to with the introduction of Kara’s friends to the D.E.O., none of the suspicion, only a resigned wariness that makes her wonder what Kara’s told her.

“I want all your research on synthetic kryptonite within the next…” She makes a show of checking her watch, pretends to think for a moment. “I want it in the next two hours.”

“That’s an impossible request to fill, Agent…Danvers, if I recall correctly?”

Alex sneers, can’t hold herself back from that.

“Why is it impossible? Don’t want us to know what you were doing to Supergirl?”

Lena rolls her eyes, leans back in her seat. There’s something like amusement there, a look in her eyes that says that she knows more than Alex does. It makes her grit her teeth, makes her want to rage and force her to answer but she can’t, not when Kara is at risk.

“No. It’s impossible because it’s not my research. I simply provided the resources and able hands.”

“What?”

Lena scoffs. “Did you really think that I would spend time developing something that would cause even more destruction if not monitored carefully? That I would willingly hurt Kara like that when I value her as much as any of her other friends?”

“What does Kara have to do with this?”

“Please don’t insult my intelligence like that. Kara is Supergirl.”

Alex leans back, sighs. She’d deny it if she could but this is the woman who holds all the answers she wants and she can’t risk angering her. She can’t risk pushing her back into herself when she needs to find a cure, to find a way to get Kara back to herself, so she just nods, motions for her to go on.

Lena relaxes slightly, her shoulders still stiff but her body shifting in a way that makes Alex back down despite her better instincts. She doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to lower her defenses around this woman, but she can’t help the way her body reacts and she has to wonder if this is what happens to Kara, if this is how she got her to trust her.

“As I was saying, I had nothing to do with this but providing for it to happen.”

“Who’s responsible then?”

“Isn’t it obvious? You sister is a drug addict.”

Alex doesn’t react physically, but her mind is moving quickly, pulling up and analyzing her memories, discarding what’s irrelevant and holding onto what isn’t. There’s a picture forming in front of her, something that disturbs her more than she wants to admit.

She leans back, surveys the way Lena really holds herself. There’s a nervousness there that she hasn’t seen before, something like the need to get up, to do something, anything rather than just sit there answering questions that Alex already knows the answers to. Her fingers tap the table between them, a steady rhythm that she has to shake her head at.

“Even if she could hear you, she won’t be able to exonerate you right now.”

Lena’s eyes narrow. “What did you do to her?”

“Nothing that she wouldn’t appreciate if she were in her right mind. Now back to my request.”

“I can’t give you that. The research was brought to me and I simply provided the materials for synthesis.”

“I find that hard to believe when our information tells us that you’ve been to your brother’s vaults all over the U.S. and Europe.”

“Nothing escapes Mr. Schott’s web, does it?”

Alex smirks but doesn’t mention that Vasquez has been the one monitoring her for a while, doesn’t mention that she’s never trusted her around Kara, around the one person in her life who matters most. She doesn’t need to, not when Lena seems all too aware of the kind of distrust her name brings, the kind of instinctive reaction that has her hand on her gun even as she relaxes further in her presence.

Lena settles into her seat. “What possible reason could I have for trusting you, Agent Danvers? You would imprison your own foster sister and for what? Because she has power?”

“If I recall correctly, your brother feared that power.”

Lena nods. “My brother was also a fool who couldn’t see past the xenophobic idealogy that Lillian so carefully entrenched in him. I’m not Lex and I’ll never be Lex.”

“I have a hard time believing that when I had to physically restrain Kara for the safety of this organization.”

“She’s hyperfocused on one goal, Agent Danvers, and that goal is, for some reason she won’t tell me, you. There’s nothing you can do to stop her if she really wanted to get out.”

Alex nods, doesn’t think about what she already knows. She pushes it down again, makes herself comfortable as she looks at the way Lena has begun to lounge in her seat. She’s too comfortable, too relaxed about this and it confuses Alex, makes her wonder what the hell is going on here and why she can’t come to a different conclusion.

Lena sighs. There’s something resigned about it, something that speaks to her being more weary than careful now. The sudden shift confuses her, but Alex doesn’t let it show, doesn’t let her know what she feels upon seeing this as she waits for something, anything.

“Look, I’ll help you because I think I’ve made it worse trying to temper all of this and if nothing else, I want to fix it.”

“Fix what?”

Lena closes her eyes, her fingers trembling for the first time.

“Your sister is addicted to the red kryptonite serum she theorized. I tried to temper it at her own request but her body’s adaptation rate was too fast.”

“This is…what?”

“Isolation does strange things to a person. My suggestion? Immediate detoxification. It will be painful but she needs to have the substance flushed out of her system completely before the muscle degradation accelerates past critical speeds.”

Alex nods.

“Thank you.”

Lena shakes her head.

“It’s the least I can do after my own involvement. Don’t make me regret helping you, Agent Danvers.”


	9. Chapter 9

She wakes to bright lights and the feeling of being watched. There’s something there, something that lingers on the edge of her mind, but she can’t feel it, can’t know it. All she knows is pain, searing pain throughout her body that has her attempting to curl into herself to stop it.

Only, she can’t move, can’t find a release from the pain tearing through her. Her arms and legs are restrained, the familiar heat of kryptonite burning through her clothes as she tries to resist. She wants out, wants to find a corner and curl up, to block out the world, but there’s no way that she can do it right now, no way that she can free herself.

She struggles harder, tries to fight the kryptonite, but it’s no use. She just gets weaker and weaker, her strength seeping out of her with the more effort she puts in. Kara knows that she should stop, that she should relax, but she can’t.

There’s something crawling beneath her skin, a need that she can’t seem to escape from, a need for something she doesn’t know. There’s so much of the unknown surrounding her body that she has to bite her lip to keep from screaming out with the force of it.

She cries, alone in that room. There’s such a deep, vast emptiness inside of her that she can’t seem to outrun, a need for something that she can’t quench and all she wants is to feel that void filled, feel it welling with whatever it is that she needs but doesn’t know.

* * *

 

Kara lolls her head to the side as she stares out at the room around her. She can’t tell where she is, can’t figure out if she’s in friendly hands or hands that would hurt her. Lena wouldn’t do this to her, she doesn’t think, wouldn’t betray her to an enemy she doesn’t know. She wouldn’t give her up for…what?

She doesn’t actually know the answer to that, just trusts that Lena wouldn’t do it to her, wouldn’t betray her like that for something that she could probably get herself. She knows that she shouldn’t, that trusting someone like her so much is a bad idea, but she can’t help herself, can’t stop herself from believing in her so much that she would trust her with something like this, something that could undo her.

Alex would kill her if she knew, she thinks. She would kill her then bring her back to life, only to kill her again, if she knew that she’d told Lena her secrets. She would yell, would look at her as if she was disappointed and then ask if Kara had even thought about it. The worst part is that she wouldn’t have an answer for her.

She wouldn’t be able to tell Alex her reasons for that decision, because there are none. All she knows is that she’s been so lonely without her and having Lena there feels a little bit like having her sister back after she’d been lost to her for so long.

She cries then, cries for the sister she thinks she’s lost from all of this, cries for the things she has burnt in the last twenty four hours because of her own fallibility. Kara knows that this is her fault, knows that she is the root cause of all of this, but she also knows that she craves everything she’d gotten from the red K, craves to forget all of her inhibitions and escape all of this.

She cries because she is weak, cries because she can’t stop herself from wanting more of that weakness, more of the freedom from all her pain and her loneliness that she felt. She can’t seem to stop herself from wanting more, from wanting to escape.

She knows, knows that it’s wrong, but Kara has always been good at pretending that it’s not, at pretending that she’s not who she is. She’s always been good at pushing down the pain and putting on a smile.

“That won’t work with Alex.”

She strains to look up, to see the owner of the voice that speaks, but she’s restricted too much in her movements. She gives up after a while, convinced that the voice is in her head, convinced that nothing she does now matters anyway.

* * *

 

She’s angry, pissed off that they would dare keep someone like her restrained like this. How dare they keep her locked away from Alex, keep her from what belongs to her and her alone.

They don’t deserve her, don’t deserve Alex the way she does, and she will claim her when she gets out of these restraints. She will claim her and never let her go, never let her out of her sight for as long as she can have her.

* * *

 

Alex comes to see her, comes to check on her. She touches her gently, presses against her with the kind of pressure she            needs, a reassurance, a promise. She cries then, turns her head and lets Alex wipe her tears as quickly as they come.

She can’t do this, can’t make herself heal when she knows that there’s a part of her that will always crave the oblivion of the serum’s freedom. She can’t face Alex when she knows that she isn’t worthy of the sister who came back from hell for her, and her only. She can’t face her when she knows that Alex is so much stronger than her, so much better as a person, a human, a sister.

* * *

 

“I drank half the bottle you left for me before I decided to come look for you. I almost drank the whole thing before I could make myself do something, anything to help you, and then I did.”

She doesn’t look at her, not even now that she has some sort of freedom of movement. She can’t look at her as she curls up, pain wracking through her. She doesn’t look at her, can’t look at her, can’t compromise everything.

She wants to spit at her, wants to spew words so vile that she has to question her own sanity for the wanting of it. She wants to rail at her, wants to call her whore, slut, human degenerate for giving in to her for that one moment in time, but she can’t, she won’t do it. She won’t give in to her base emotions when the truth is that she’s the one who’s all of those things, the one who was willing to lose herself for something that’s not hers.

* * *

 

“Please…please just get Lena, let her give me more of the serum.”

“Kara…”

“Please. I need it. I need the pain to stop, please.” She starts crying. “I just want to stop hurting Alex.”

Her sister smooths her hair back, kisses her forehead as she nuzzles her. Kara cries against her touch, turns into her then. She doesn’t want to let her see her like this, but she can’t help the way she is in that moment, can’t help the way Alex calms her down like no one else can.

* * *

 

Lena stares at her, and Kara shifts uncomfortably, tries to avoid her gaze. She knows that she’d been caught on camera, knows that Lena has probably seen everything she’s said and done, but she’s not ready to face it, not ready to know that she’s probably hurt her best friend.

“You’re an idiot.”

She nods, sniffling. She knows that, knows how stupid she’s always been with this project, knows that she never should have started it. She knows that she’s an idiot.

“Your muscles are basically disappearing and you didn’t think to tell me? Damn it Kara! I could have found a way to help, maybe stopped all of this before you got hurt too badly.”

Kara shakes her head, looks at Lena then. Her eyes are wet and she wants to cry even more, wants to sob as she tries to get Lena to see reason, to see the things that she can’t change any more than she can change who she is. She wants to confess everything that she feels, try to get her onto her side when it’s so clear that she’s with Alex now, but she can’t.

She can’t do that to Alex, can’t undermine her no matter how much she wants the red, wants to escape from the torment that is having to see her with Maggie while she herself feels so alone. She sniffles as she thinks about it, forces herself to face the reality of it.

“Oh darling.” Lena moves closer, sits in the chair next to her bed. “You’re in so much pain, but this isn’t the answer. You need to let us help. Please, Kara.”

She shakes her head, closes her fingers and opens them again. This range of movement is all that’s been afforded to her, all that she can do and it hurts, hurts that she’s lost Alex’s trust like this. It hurts that she won’t let her go free, won’t let her move.

All she needs is some red kryptonite and she’ll be fine, be okay. All she needs is some of the serum and she’ll be good as new, even better, maybe.

* * *

 

Alex strokes her hair back, presses a kiss to her sweaty forehead. That she’s sweating isn’t a good sign, isn’t something that should be happening, but she doesn’t care. She’s shaking now, need pushing through her veins as she struggles not to beg, not to plead with Alex for more serum.

Her sister sits next to her, strokes her skin. Part of Kara wants to give in, to relax beneath her touch, but she’s shivering, pain wracking through her body again and again until all she knows is the clenching of her stomach, the pulsing of her head as she aches. Her body burns as the last of the serum burns through her and all she wants is for the pain to stop.

“Hey, hey I’m here.” Alex leans down, presses their foreheads together. “I’m right here Kara. I promise, I’m not leaving. I’m not going anywhere that you can’t follow and you’re not leaving me either.”

* * *

 

She can feel Alex and Lena watching her, can feel the combined weight of their stares as they work on something. She can’t tell what it is, can’t even smell it, but she knows that it’s something big, something important enough that they’re working together.

Curiosity breaks through the pain for a moment, pushes past the need, but it doesn’t last long, doesn’t give her enough strength to fight, to try to get away from these restraints. She swallows against it, tries to hold onto it, but it’s too fleeting, too temporary a feeling for her to grasp onto, push herself toward as she tries to focus.

He head spins as she tries to break through the fog, aches even more as she tries and fails to move through it. She gasps as another wave of pain hits, tries to curl in on herself, but she can’t. There isn’t enough room in the restraints to let her do that.

“Kara!” Alex is by her side in an instant, hands searching, probing for something Kara can’t figure out. “Tell me what it is, Kar. Tell me where it hurts.”

* * *

 

She whimpers as Alex and Lena walk in, looks away from both of them. She can’t face them, can’t face the pity, the disappointment that her actions have created. She can’t see the way they look at her without breaking down.

Alex’s fingers stroke through her hair and she whimpers. She can’t help it, can’t stop herself from responding to Alex’s touch even though every part of her is screaming out to stop, to pull away from the danger that touch presents.

Alex sighs, her breath close to her ear, and Kara starts to shake, to cry. She doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t deserve to have Alex so close when she’s so weak.

“Come on baby girl. Be brave for me. You can be brave, right?”

Her hand strokes Kara’s arm, brushes her hair back. She can’t do this, can’t calm herself down when all she wants to do is run, inject herself with red and find the freedom she’s lost. She wants to escape from this place and find somewhere safe, somewhere she can go back to the red in peace.

She trembles, wants to run, to break the restraints, but she can’t. She’s too weak and she hates this, hates being held down. She hates Alex for this, hates Lena for allowing it when she knows that she wants to be free.

Lena comes to her other side, presses a kiss to her forehead before the needle pierces her skin. For a moment, she feels relief, feels the kind of relief that means she’s getting what she wants, but then the world feels like it’s burning, feels like everything inside of her is being torn asunder.

She wants to scream, wants to fight and thrash and try to get out of bed, but her limbs are frozen. She’s paralysed, trapped in her own body and forced to experience this fire tearing through her bones and blood. She’s stuck in time, stuck in the flames of her pain.

“It’s only for a little bit, baby girl,” Alex says. “Just go with it for a while, Kara. I need you to rest and relax through this, let the medicine work.”

She can barely hear her, can barely hear anything past the pain and the burning. She can barely hear anything that Alex is saying.

“Relax, darling,” Lena is saying. “The pain will go away soon. Just let it work, let it get the rest of the red kryptonite serum out of your system.”

* * *

 

She’s shivering now, finally released enough to curl into herself. Her body is shaking, barely able to stay still while she stares off into space, not really seeing.

The cravings are gone, vanished thanks to whatever they put in her, but Kara still wants more red, needs to find that freedom that she had before, needs the courage she had when she was under the influence.

“I love you…I hate you…I need you.”

The words feel heavy on her tongue, slurred. She doesn’t know if any of them are true anymore, doesn’t know if she can really feel anything now that she feels so numb.

She doesn’t understand why it hurts so much, doesn’t understand why it feels like every part of her is choking with the effort to stay afloat. She doesn’t get it, doesn’t get why they can’t just let her go, but she’s too tired to fight it, too tired to do anything but resist for only a moment before she fades again.

* * *

 

Alex’s hand is holding hers, thumb stroking her skin as she struggles to get up. Her sister’s eyes widen, hands moving to her back as she helps her, rubs the flesh there until Kara feels like crying for the unearned comfort.

She doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t deserve any of the things Alex is so willing to give her, but she can’t help but take it, can’t help but crave everything that Alex is, everything that she represents. She grabs onto it, presses her fingers weakly into her sister’s wrists as she sits, pulls her up onto the bed.

Slowly, painfully, Kara climbs into Alex’s lap, presses her forehead against her chest. Her spine curves, protests with her movement, but Kara doesn’t care. She just wants Alex, just wants to feel her, be with her in any way she possibly can.

“Are you okay?”

There’s such concern in Alex’s voice, such a willingness to be there, that Kara can’t stop herself from crying, from clinging to her when she knows she shouldn’t be here. This is dangerous, is something that she can’t resist, but she can’t stop herself from wanting, needing to be close to Alex.

She shakes in her lap, presses against her more and more as she seeks out Alex’s skin. Her fingers curl into the collar of her shirt, pulls it down until enough of Alex’s chest is exposed that she can feel her without anything between them.

She presses her lips to the skin there, presses herself against Alex as she kisses her. She tastes like sweat, more acidic and salty than usual. She’s changed her diet, done something to affect the pH balance of her body and Kara doesn’t like it, doesn’t like that this is yet another thing that she can’t keep the same, yet another thing that has to change.

A wave of hate passes over her, the need to destroy, to crush the reason for this. She knows it’s wrong, knows that she shouldn’t hate Maggie like this, but Alex is hers, was always hers0 and should always be hers.

Kara grips her clothes, pulls off Alex’s shirt so that she can feel her skin properly. It’s heated, warm in a way that would worry her normally, but Alex has been too warm lately, too flushed and she knows why, has seen her in the corridors whenever she comes back from training.

A drop of sweat runs down her neck slowly, Kara’s eyes tracking its movement. She reaches up, follows the path with her finger until she can hear Alex’s breath hitch at the contact.

“Kara…”

Her breath stutters and she stops, for a while anyway. She rests her head against Alex’s heart, makes herself stay still as she listens to it beat. There’s life there, something more than what she believe to be a simple process of gravity and pressure being applied to a human body.

She taps her fingers against Alex’s skin, watches the way her throat jumps with each beat of her fingers. She smiles, presses a kiss to her skin before looking up at her, tracing her cheekbones with her fingers.

“You’re everything to me. You’re the only person who’s been there from the start and one of the only people I want to be there at the end.”

“Kara…what…?”

She shakes her head. She needs Alex to shut up, to stay quiet and so, she does the only thing she wants to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, this is not meant to be a healthy relationship in this fic.


End file.
